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Issue #0822/1 - In one of the most exciting developments seen in the field of business inkjet printing for years, brother has announced an A3 format inkjet All-in-One device, the MFC-6490CW, boasting a very high multifunction specification. Although the product is not yet announced in Europe, nor has it reached stores fully in the US, pricing is available for both hardware and print cartridges in the US so comparisons can be made against A3 single function inkjet, A4 multifunction inkjet and A4 multifunction laser devices.

What makes this most exciting is that it is the first desktop A3 format inkjet All-in-One machine to come to market (we don’t count Hewlett-Packard’s Edgeline MFPs or Ricoh’s Aficio MPC1500SP (Europe) / 615C(US)!). Manufacturers have tended to take the view that to produce a device of this nature would be too expensive for the small business market – largely because of the cost of including an A3 scan platen.

Brother MFC-6490CW
A3 AiO

It is not necessarily a market that every manufacturer will wish to enter, however. There can be little doubt that HP will be there in the not so distant future, simply because of the company’s desire to dominate every sector. However, unless Lexmark sees an opportunity to get in before Hewlett-Packard, it is far less likely that we will ever see an A3 inkjet AiO from Lexmark. Epson and Canon are both making increasing moves towards business inkjet as well and so they could be contenders also – however, they may wish to see how Brother succeeds before committing.

Brother has dubbed this new machine the first in its ‘Professional Series’ (US), so we can be sure of more similarly targeted devices to come but the term ‘Professional’ may not necessarily be adopted universally around the globe.

What makes ‘Professional Series’ very suitable terminology in this instance is that the MFC-6490CW is a fully fledged 4-function A3 multifunction device. Its concession to low cost A3 workflow lies in the fact that it is inkjet technology not laser. Whereas the MFC-6490CW is expected to sell at around $300 in the US, A3 colour laser multifunction devices can cost 10x that – as a starting point!

Printing, copying, scanning and faxing are the basic functions but it will also ship with ScanSoft PaperPort (Windows) and Presto PageManager (Macintosh) for document archiving and management functionality and, in support of this functionality, it is fully network capable out of the box. In fact, not only is wired Ethernet included but so is 802.11b/g wireless networking, so any business or high level home user will be able to network the device into their existing infrastructure.

Standard USB 2.0 interface completes the printer interfaces but the MFC-6490CW is also equipped with PictBridge interface and memory card slots for direct printing of photographs. The front USB slot is also used for direct printing of documents from USB stick (right up to A3 size) and also provides a scan-to-USB capability to add to the scan-to-network PC capabilities.

In addition to producing an excellent quality of business document, using 1.5pl ink droplets, Brother’s ‘new’ (now two years old) 4-colour, independent ink tank inkjet technology is also more than capable of producing lab quality photos on glossy paper, having been proven to provide the most natural looking photos - "Inkjet All-in-One lab tests – Photo Printing Print Quality". The MFC-6490CW has a suitably high addressable resolution – up to 1,200 x 6,000 dpi – to ensure that this quality is maintained.

Other printing and copying options include borderless, n-up and poster printing and copying, together with a range of photo enhancing options: auto correct, enhance skin tone, enhance scenery, remove red-eye and convert to monochrome or sepia.

Print speed on the MFC-6490CW is higher than found on any of Brother’s A4 devices, at 35ppm in mono and 28ppm in colour, closing the gap with the current market speed leaders. However, copy speeds are lower, at 23ppm in mono and 20ppm in colour.

Fax functionality is based around a fax engine that has memory for 480 pages, six one-touch memory locations and 100 speed dial locations. The MFC-6490CW also allows fax forwarding, paging and broadcasting as well as providing users with a PC fax capability.

As an A3/Ledger size device, the MFC-6490CW can accomplish all four of its primary functions (printing, copying, scanning and faxing) in A3 and in colour. The only limitations are that the PC fax, fax forwarding and fax broadcasting are available in mono only.

Consolidating its designation as a professional business machine, all four functions are available in standalone mode and the device has a 50-sheet ADF for scanning, copying and fax versatility. The MFC-6490CW will be great for general offices, marketing departments, local authorities, education establishments, design students and many, many more – even at home for school homework, for all those posters, designs and geographical and science layouts that are needed!

Truly designed with businesses in mind, and providing for the needs of high volume office users, the MFC-6490CW has two more surprises in store for the demanding user.

Firstly, this device has two paper input trays as standard! These are both A3 format trays, holding 150 sheets and 250 sheets respectively. A total paper capacity of 400 sheets from two sources is excellent for any inkjet device, but particularly so for an A3 business device, as both A4 and A3 paper can be held at the same time.

MFC-6490CW
has two A3 paper trays

Secondly, the new independent ink cartridge set comprises both standard and high capacity options – another first for Brother and one that is specific to the business designation of the device.

Standard ink cartridges (US - LC61) have page yields of 450 pages for black and 325 pages for each of the colours, while high capacity cartridges (LC65HY) yield 900 pages in black and 750 pages in each of cyan, magenta and yellow (all to ISO 24711).

In terms of market competition, this cartridge set competes most closely with Hewlett-Packard’s HP88 series individual Officejet cartridges, which have high capacity yields (in the US) of 2,350 for black and 1,210 pages for each colour. So, Brother’s new set falls some way short of minimising interventions to HP88 levels.

But, also competing with the Brother ink set is the Hewlett-Packard HP74/75 (Europe - HP350/351) cartridge set, yielding 750 pages from the black cartridge in the US and 520 pages from the tricolour cartridge, putting Brother’s set a little way ahead on yield.

When prices are put to all of these items, we see that the cost of the Brother MFC-6490CW inks sit right in-between the two Hewlett-Packard sets, with the higher level Officejet HP88 cartridges being the most cost-effective – as one would expect.

Although Brother’s inks do tend to be on the expensive side, this does not mean that the MFC-6490CW is an expensive machine or not cost-effective – and, one has to remember that it is offering both four-functionality and A3 format combined.

For a cost comparison, obviously there are no other A3 inkjet AiOs to compare with and it would be pointless to compare with an A3 colour laser MFP costing several thousand Dollars. Therefore, we’ll compare costs with an A3 inkjet printer, an A4 inkjet AiO, and an A4 laser AiO – all targeted at the small business environment.

To avoid having too many devices to compare against, and as Hewlett-Packard is the only inkjet manufacturer to have a differentiated business inkjet range (Officejet), we’ll restrict our comparison to products from Hewlett-Packard.

Note that for this level of machine, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table and chart is calculated on the basis of 500 pages per month; 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices are typical street price without tax in the USA.

Interestingly, all three of the inkjet devices here cost exactly the same at purchase. So, for the same purchase price as the MFC-6490CW, but lower Total Cost of Printing, users are able to have either A3 printing or multi-functionality in the Hewlett-Packard range – but not both together.

Purchase Price - A3 Inkjet AiO

What they are not able to do is to buy an A4 colour laser AiO for anything like the same price as Brother’s A3 colour inkjet AiO, all of which sets the MFC-6490CW in a strong position for attracting serious business users.

By putting A3 and multifunctionality together into one package, the downside to not paying more for the hardware is that users will have to pay more for their ink and thus endure a higher (40%) Total Cost of Printing, as compared to the other inkjet devices. In all probability, when Hewlett-Packard does join this market segment, its 4-function A3 inkjet device (or even 3-function A3 device) is more than likely to have a higher purchase price attached to it, which will push the Total Cost of Printing closer to the levels we now see from Brother.

Total Cost of Printing - A3 Inkjet AiO

It is interesting to note that the cost of black ink for the MFC-6490CW is pitched at about the same level as the toner for the Colour LaserJet device. The colour ink is not priced as highly as colour toner though, which, together with the low purchase price, means that the long-term Cost of Printing, although higher than the devices using the HP88 ink set, is considerably lower (15%) than the laser AiO.

As indicated, these Hewlett-Packard inkjet products have been chosen specifically as high-level business-oriented machines. If we were to drop down the Hewlett-Packard range to products using the HP74XL(US)/HP350XL(EU) and HP75XL(US)/HP351XL(EU) cartridges, the picture changes dramatically.

Note that there is no single function A3 inkjet printer from Hewlett-Packard that uses tricolour cartridges and that, as the Colour LaserJet CM1015 and CM1017 are no longer available, there is no closer-matching laser product than the CM1312nfi either.

Note that for this level of machine, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table and chart is calculated on the basis of 500 pages per month; 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices are typical street price without tax in the USA.

Although a user will pay 50% more for the A3 device than the Officejet J6480, long-term the Total Cost of Printing of the MFC-6490CW is just over 5% lower than the tricolour cartridge-based J6480. But, also note that, with its high capacity XL cartridges, the J6480 is still a lower-cost option than the laser AiO.

Purchase Price - A3 Inkjet AiO vs A4 AiO

Total Cost of Printing - A3 Inkjet AiO vs A4 AiO

So, to conclude, the MFC-6490CW has all the characteristics of a typically thorough Brother development. It is a great step up in inkjet functionality and fills a hole in the market that has been gaping for years.

If there is one disappointment in amongst the machine’s high specification, it is the lack of a duplex capability. Brother has not fitted any of its inkjet range with a duplex capability and this is an omission that needs to be addressed as a matter of some urgency with more and more inkjet devices being delivered with duplex printing as a standard feature. As the MFC-6490CW is heavily business oriented, it needs to be duplex capable.

How long it will be before Brother’s competitors, who have been putting off the production of an A3 AiO device, respond is the big question? This is a brave move for Brother because there is no precedent at all in the market for A3 inkjet AiOs. It is our opinion that this device will fulfil a longed-for need in the small office environment for a low cost A3 device capable of performing all the basic functions of a full-blown A3 colour laser MFP.

In all of these comparisons, the key factor to remember is that the MFC-6490CW offers both A3 format and multifunctionality in one package. Total Cost of Printing may be higher than the HP88-based inkjet devices but the flexibility of functionality more than makes up for it.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Workflow, Strategy, Print Technology, Hardware, Comparisons, New Products, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.